


Mere Froth

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: Frasier (TV)
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niles's world is rocked, as Daphne reveals she knows more about fashionable coffee than him. Roz observes and laughs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mere Froth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lauren (notalwaysweak)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/gifts).



> Fairly sure the flat white made it to Seattle somewhat after Niles and Daphne coupled up. Please go with the slight AU. 
> 
> Warnings: this is very fluffy and gen at heart but two possible squicks if you read between the lines:  
> \- Niles's unrequited yearning and romanticising of Daphne, about canon levels  
> \- Roz half describes a sexual encounter which left her physically hurt, though very much consensual and enjoyed.

The hot flush of humiliation surged in a familiar tide up Niles’s neck. He was intrigued to note a new prickling sensation in the region of the breastbone, suggesting that this particular humiliation was deeper and more painful than most he had recently experienced. This had the echoing quality of one of those schoolyard humiliations that lived with Niles still, where a personal slight had become schoolyard property, a nickname, a torment which would be relived over and over and ov-

“Are you all right?” asked Daphne, her mellow Mancunian lilt sweetly penetrating his horrified daze. “Only, it’s just a kind of coffee, Dr Crane. Newish, I hear. But it’s all right if you’ve not heard of it before. Hard to keep up with all these fashions, isn’t it?”

It was. _It was_. And that was precisely why Niles put considerable time and effort into remaining abreast of the latest trends and novelties in his spheres: the opera, modern art, viticulture (not that he approved of too much innovation there), psychiatry of course… and coffee. This hit him right where he lived. And sat, and chatted, and drank precisely perfect hot beverages. 

“Relax, Niles,” said Roz. Roz! Of all the people to have observed this ghastly lapse, Frasier’s producer was right up there on Niles’s list of people he would rather have seen boiled in oil than have as witnesses. “It’s nice Daphne’s getting some leisure time, reading up about life in America, trendspotting-“

That last word definitely came with a side of snicker. Curse Roz. Especially when she continued, “It’s not the end of the world that your father’s home care worker heard about flat whites before you did.”

 _Flat white_. Such a pretty sound for such a fatal chink in Niles’s armour. He hadn’t even noticed the little explanatory blackboard in Café Nervosa, let alone picked up hint of this innovation through the usual sources ahead of time. 

“The magazine said it’s an Aussie thing,” said Daphne, blissful Daphne, her merry chirp a balm to Niles’s shredded amour proper. “Apparently they’ve had it forever, and now it’s catching on in the wider world.” She added meditatively, “Strange. There’s not many new fashions where Australia’s in the lead. I wonder why that should be?”

She had dear cousins in Australia, Niles remembered. He remembered in fact _just in time_ to bite back a pithy bon mot about the Antipodean sense of style, although sadly not quite before he had issued a preliminary snort.

“Oh man,” said Roz, and Niles’s testicles ascended a full half-centimetre in preparation for whatever she was about to say. There was a particular tone to the Doyle voice when about to launch into some utterly obscene, something which revealed a depth and breadth of sexual experience that Niles could (and did) only dream of. (Sometimes, in moments of dark unprofessionalism, he considered comparing Roz to some of his clients. The sex addicts, for example. He was pretty sure she got more tail than any of them, and- _Good god_! Even before she said whatever travesty she was planning to share now, she had infected his inner vocabulary to a terrifying degree.) 

He was therefore in the deepest of flusters even before Roz continued, “I knew this guy, once, from the Gold Coast. A surfer, and a barman. He was an innovator all right. And if I had my way he’d be the fashion in every nation. Most inventive use of his-“

Niles had mistimed his derisive snort, beginning it on ‘surfer’, so that it had long ended before Roz got into the meat of her anecdote. As a desperate makeshift, he tried to stop his ears with a focus on Daphne’s uncomfortable shifting and the Café Nervosa piped light jazz, but to no avail. 

“- right on my butt-“ said Roz, and Niles’s control broke. An interruption to narrative discourse might be the height of discourtesy, but a body could only stand so much. 

He turned to Daphne, manly and in control of the situation. “So, tell me, how are you finding your ‘flat white’?” He caught himself pronouncing the term in the manner of a Circuit Court Justice enquiring what a defendant meant by ‘garage funk’, but it couldn’t be helped. At the very least, it blotted out whatever Roz was saying that required _that_ hand gesture. 

Daphne’s pellucid gaze shifted from her fascinated engagement with Roz’s story (Niles somewhat deprecated her general enjoyment of Roz’s company, and she certainly seemed to get more satisfaction from the ripe narrative of past sexual encounters than Niles did. But perhaps Daphne simply had a more charitable nature than he). “What? Oh, the coffee?” She sipped, delicately. A tiny froth bloom remained on her upper lip. Niles dreamed of leaning forward, closing that gap between their mouths, licking that white foam clean, and then-

“And I told my doctor,” said Roz, “I guess you had to be there. Totally worth the stitches.”

At the same moment, Daphne’s rosebud lips formed the words, “I dunno, it mostly just tastes like coffee to me. More of a cappuccino sort of thing, not so much a latte.”

Niles hesitated, torn between the impulse to run screaming from the café (and never speak of or inhabit the vicinity of Roz Doyle ever again in order to restore his confidence in himself as a sexual and fashionable being) or to find out more about the new coffee. He chose, of course, the wiser path.

“You don’t find the ristretto comes through more strongly with the smaller cup?”

“Not really,” said Daphne, doubtfully, “And this whole thing with the milk-“

“Ah yes!” Niles responded, reading over her shoulder the informative notice for cutting-edge Nervosa patrons who had yet to experiment with the delights of the flat white. “Textured to perfection!”

“To be honest, Dr Crane,” Daphne purred - although technically perhaps that wasn’t the most apposite verb, it was just that Daphne talking usually made Niles long to stroke her hair and this was no exception - “It’s just froth. I mean, how much texture can you ram into a few ounces of hot milk?”

She was so wise. Wise, and also beautiful. Niles started to feel better about having missed out on being a part of the crest of the flat white wave. It was just coffee. He sipped delicately at his double decaf non-fat latte (extra hot, extra foam, less than half the usual level of cinnamon) and basked in her sensible, sensitive all-consuming radiance.

“Well,” said Roz, cheerfully, “I gotta go. And I’m with Daphne. I like my coffee like I like my men: big, dark and strong enough to lead me to seek medical attention once in a while.” 

Niles would never be Roz’s type. He was so, so grateful. 

“You two stay here,” Roz directed, as though she expected Niles to obey her directives. "You look like you're so comfortable." She added, absently, "I always think that, when I see you here together. Like you fit so well."

Niles took back absolutely everything bad he had ever thought about Roz. A woman of unparalleled taste and discernment. 

(Not as wonderful as Daphne. But then, no one was.)


End file.
